He thinks he has pyroluria, a social anxiety condition where you have a higher need for some key nutrients: zinc, vitamin B6 and evening primrose oil.

We are often surprised when we hear that someone who appears to be outgoing and extroverted (like Sean) actually has social anxiety.

It’s more common than you think and is made worse under stressful situations: life stresses, gluten sensitivities etc.

I share how my social anxiety got really bad in my late thirties (when my PMS was so bad) and how

many of us with pyroluria push through and deal with it

we just want to stay home

we don’t really want to see people

Not everyone needs omega-3 supplements!

We discuss omega-3s and omega-6s and how pyrolurics often don’t need to supplement with omega-3s like fish oils but can extract the omega-3s from the foods they eat: grass-fed red meat, wild fish like salmon, leafy greens and walnuts.

Pyrolurics often do need to supplement with the GLA form of omega-6 that we find in evening primrose oil as GLA is often low, plus the GLA enhances zinc absorption.

(by the way: I said alpha linolenic acid (ALA) but should have said gamma linolenic acid (GLA)

A good copper-free multi is part of the protocol because low zinc often means high copper and this can make you more anxious.

Looking at other sources of copper is a helpful for many pyrolurics: eating too many nuts, baking with nut flours, the copper IUD.

You don’t want to miss this part…Sean asks if you can cure introversion with this pyroluria protocol. If you are an introvert and force yourself in social settings, feel very uncomfortable and anxious being around big groups of people then you’re going to have to watch the end of the video for my answer!

You can watch the whole snippet here

This is part of my interview on the Depression Sessions, a FREE online event hosted by my friend Sean. I’ll also be sharing information about the amazing amino acids – inexpensive, over-the-counter supplements that can lift your mood and end anxiety in minutes!

Sean traveled the country to interview the best of the best experts — medical doctors, naturopaths, nutritionists, and bestselling authors — on what really causes depression and anxiety and what to do about it.

Some of us (like me) flew to San Diego to be interviewed in his home. It was such a thrill to be interviewed by the legendary Sean Croxton and is an honor to be part of this group of experts!

Here are just a few of the amazing experts you’ll hear from:

Suzy Cohen, also known as America’s Pharmacist, uncovers specific prescription drugs that rob your body and brain of mood-friendly nutrients.

Datis Kharrazian will show you what insomnia, anxiety, and the symptoms that tag along with depression can tell you about what’s causing it.

Hyla Cass, a medical doctor and integrative psychiatrist (who has been featured on two prior Anxiety Summits), shares her best tips for transitioning OFF of psychiatric meds while avoiding or minimizing common withdrawal symptoms.

Ben Lynch (another Anxiety Summit favorite) reveals the incredibly common genetic mutation known to drive depression (and anxiety) … and the critical nutrients that make such a big difference.

This is not your ordinary online health summit. You can expect high-quality interviews, HD production and picture quality, and a life-changing experience!

Click HERE to sign up and to watch the trailer (I hear it’s gone viral on Facebook!) and catch me sharing some scary facts on medications and very young kids, and some excellent gems from other speakers on the Depression Sessions.

Pyroluria is a genetic condition that is frequently associated with a type of anxiety characterized by social anxiety, avoidance of crowds, a feeling of inner tension, and bouts of depression. People with this problem experience varying degrees of anxiety or fear, often starting in childhood, but they usually manage to cover it up and push through. They tend to build their life around one person, become more of a loner over time, have difficulty handling stress or change, and have heightened anxiety symptoms when under more stress.

Addressing low levels of the mineral zinc and vitamin B6, together with some other nutrients and stress management, are key to addressing these symptoms.

Joan Mathews-Larson is someone who I consider an expert on the subject of pyroluria. In her book Depression-Free Naturally, she reports the prevalence as follows: 11 percent of the healthy population, 40 percent of adults with psychiatric disorders, 25 percent of children with psychiatric disorders, 30 percent of people with schizophrenia, and 40 percent of alcoholics.

Abram Hoffer worked primarily with schizophrenic patients, but he found pyroluria was also present in 25 percent of his nonschizophrenic patients, including adults with anxiety, depression, and alcoholism, and children with learning disorders and behavioral disorders.

According to McGinnis, pyroluria is also present in about 46 percent of people with autism spectrum disorders and 71 percent of those with Down syndrome.

I work primarily with adult women who are anxious, depressed, or both and have found that at least 80 percent of my clients with moderate to severe anxiety have a large number of pyroluria symptoms.

I thought it would be useful to summarize the above percentages for some clarity. I used some educated guesses to get some ranges we may expect to see. Keep in mind that the differing percentages are because of the different populations each practitioner works with:

Thin Basement Membrane Disease (an inherited collagen/connective tissue disorder diagnosed via kidney biopsy). Someone contacted me during season 3 of the Anxiety Summit and said she has pyroluria and TBMD. She shared that the pyroluria protocol helped with her TBMD symptoms.

Other factors/conditions to consider:

Miscarriage – Carl Pfeiffer observed that pyroluria is more common in girls and that girls in the family often look alike. It seems that boy babies are more frequently miscarried

MTHFR defects – I have been hearing that many people with pyroluria also have one or both of the MTHFR polymorphisms. We know that methylation polymorphisms are a factor in miscarriages and it would be interesting to know if more boys are miscarried.

Other conditions that have a social anxiety aspect, a possible neurotransmitter imbalance with a likely pyroluria connection. These came up as questions during season 3 of the Anxiety Summit and I’ll report back as I find out more:

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. I don’t know if there is there a connection between pyroluria and Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (where the person sees large or small objects/people and often has migraines). I had never heard of this condition but my quick search had me wondering about the word “hallucinations.” The original work by Carl Pfeiffer was with schizophrenics who had pyroluria so it’s possible that there is a connection.

Selective mutism I also don’t know if there is a connection between pyroluria and selective mutism. We do know that selective mutism often goes hand in hand with anxiety and social anxiety.

Both young girls with the above conditions did score high on the pyroluria questionnaire and it will be wonderful to hear if the pyroluria protocol helps them. I really do hope so!

I will be doing more digging to find the connections between pyroluria and Lyme disease, leaky gut and oxalate issues. I also plan to take a deeper dive into the joint problems we see in pyrolurics so stay tuned for future blogs on these topics.

If you’re aware of any other conditions related to pyroluria or if have pyroluria and have seen other health conditions improve, please do share in the comments.

Safe Harbor is the world’s largest site on non-drug approaches for mental health.

Thousands of people around the world have recovered from mental disorders and now enjoy the simple pleasures of a drug-free life. Most were told this was impossible. Yet we hear from these individuals regularly. Many others have been able to significantly reduce their dependency on psychiatric medication. Commonly these people find that underlying their “mental” disorders are medical problems, allergies, toxic conditions, nutritional imbalances, poor diets, lack of exercise, or other treatable physical conditions.

Safe Harbor is a nonprofit corporation, founded in 1998 and based in Los Angeles, California.

In 1958, when Safe Harbor founder Dan Stradford was four years old, his father, William Stradford, vanished into a mental hospital with a “nervous breakdown.” After receiving a series of shock treatments and potent drugs, William Stradford returned home a broken man. His memory was gone, his personality had deteriorated, and he could scarcely hold a job.

William Stradford – a once-vibrant, personable man – never recovered. The family, with 4 children, plummeted into poverty and fell apart. All the children except for Dan ended up in children’s homes.

From a very early age, Dan Stradford felt there had to be safer, more effective alternatives for treating the mentally disturbed. In 1998 he formed the groundwork for the Safe Harbor Project to help others avoid the tragedy he witnessed growing up.

Finding many like-minded people inside and outside the medical community, Dan requested their help as board members and advisors and the Safe Harbor Project was born.

Safe Harbor has a very active Integrative Psychiatry email listserv for professionals who wish to share information on alternative mental health treatments. You can find out more about this and sign up here

If you had to give up either coffee or the internet for 2 weeks, which one would you choose? How about either coffee or sex for 2 weeks? If you’d rather relinquish anything to keep your coffee, you’d be on par with the majority of the people around you.

Taking steps to remove gluten, dairy or sugar from your diet can feel like a breeze compared to giving up coffee. However, as with anything that makes us feel that good, there is another side to your java fixation, and you need to know about it.

Benefits of coffee

Many reliable studies are often cited in confirming that coffee is full of antioxidants and polyphenols. However, these same antioxidants and polyphenols can also be found abundantly in many fruits and vegetables.

In addition, there are also a variety studies showing coffee’s role in the prevention of cancer, diabetes, depression, cirrhosis of the liver, gallstones, etc.

Beyond science, there is also the undeniable feeling of comfort in a morning routine, a stop at a favorite coffee shop, the smell, the buzz, and the energetic boost and mental clarity that come with a good cup of joe.

Everyone reacts differently

Is coffee bad for everybody? Not really. Each of us can have a different reaction to coffee. Some people get jittery, anxious and nervous, while others feel uplifted for hours. Many coffee drinkers report feeling good for the first two hours (mainly due to a dopamine spike), but eventually their energy and mental alertness will start dropping rapidly.

Coffee is metabolized in Phase I of the liver detoxification pathway, and some people have a harder time breaking it down – we call them “slow metabolizers.” This can either manifest immediately, presenting shaky and jittery feelings, or in a delayed fashion, such as poor sleep and digestive issues.

What is so worrisome about coffee?

If you are suffering from thyroid issues, Hashimoto’s, adrenal fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, hot flashes or hormone-related conditions, it’s important to be fully aware of the “other side of coffee” and make an educated decision whether it is good for you.

Here are some of the lesser-known facts about coffee:

Increases blood sugar levels

According to this study, caffeine increases blood sugar levels. This is especially dangerous for people with hypoglycemia (or low sugar levels) who feel jittery, shaky, moody and unfocused when hungry. Blood sugar fluctuations cause cortisol spikes, which not only exhaust the adrenals, but also deregulate the immune system. This is highly undesirable for those of us with adrenal fatigue, Hashimoto’s or Graves’ disease. Such cortisol spikes are also highly inflammatory (read more below).

Creates sugar and carbohydrate cravings

As the result of the above (increase in sugar levels), when our blood sugar levels come down, we need an emergency fix to bring them back up. This is why people who drink coffee at breakfast or indulge in sugary and processed breakfasts crave carbs and sugar by 11am or later in the day.

Contributes to acid reflux and damages gut lining

Coffee stimulates the release of gastrin, the main gastric hormone, which speeds up intestinal transit time. Coffee can also stimulate the release of bile (which is why some people run to the bathroom soon after drinking coffee) and digestive enzymes.

In a person with a healthy digestion, this is not a big deal. However, for people with autoimmune conditions, compromised digestion (such as IBS, or “leaky gut”), this can cause further digestive damage to the intestinal lining (source).

Exhausts the adrenals

Coffee stimulates the adrenals to release more cortisol, our stress hormone; this is partly why we experience a wonderful but temporary and unsustainable burst of energy.

What many of us don’t realize is that our tired adrenals are often the cause of unexplained weight gain, sleeping problems, feeling emotionally fragile, depression and fatigue. Drinking coffee while experiencing adrenal fatigue is only adding fuel to the fire.

Worsens PMS and lumpy breasts

It’s well-established that coffee contributes to estrogen dominance (source), which can mean one of two things: we either have too much estrogen in relation to progesterone, or we have an imbalance in the estrogen metabolites (some are protective and some are dangerous).

PMS, lumpy breasts, heavy periods, cellulite and even breast cancer (which is an estrogenic cancer) can be symptoms of estrogen dominance.

Gluten-cross reactive food

50% of people with gluten sensitivities also experience cross reactivity with other foods, including casein in milk products, corn, coffee, and almost all grains, because their protein structures are similar. Cyrex Labs provides a test for gluten cross-reactive foods.

Many people report having a similar reaction to coffee as they do to gluten.

Impacts the conversion of T4 to T3 hormones

Coffee impacts the absorption of levothyroxine (the synthetic thyroid hormone); this is why thyroid patients need to take their hormone replacement pill at least an hour before drinking coffee.

The indirect but important point is that coffee contributes to estrogen dominance, cited above, and estrogen dominance inhibits T4 to T3 conversion.

Can cause miscarriages

This study showed that women who drink coffee during their pregnancy are at a higher risk of miscarriage.

Is highly inflammatory

Any functional or integrative doctor would say the majority of modern diseases are caused by inflammation – a smoldering and invisible fire found on a cellular level.

This study found that caffeine is a significant contributor to oxidative stress and inflammation in the body. Chronic body pains and aches, fatigue, skin problems, diabetes and autoimmune conditions are just some of the conditions related to inflammation.

Can contribute to and even cause osteoporosis

It is well-known that coffee changes our body pH to a lower, and thus more acidic, level. A low pH (which means a more acidic body) can contribute to osteoporosis.

This study has confirmed that habitual coffee drinking among postmenopausal women was the leading cause of osteoporosis.

Can cause insomnia and poor sleep

This study showed that 400mg of “caffeine taken 6 hours before bedtime has important disruptive [sleep] effects.”

This, again, is dependent on the individual and his or her ability to metabolize caffeine. Some people experience deep and restful sleep whether or not they drink coffee, while others do not, even if they stop drinking anything caffeinated at noon.

How sensitive are you and how does coffee impact your sleep? You will only find out when you give up caffeinated drinks for 5 days – then your body will tell you!

12. Can cause anxiety and depression (Trudy: I added this one!)

Many people find that caffeine consumption can worsen anxiety. For example, chronic, heavy use of caffeine can cause or heighten anxiety and may lead to increased use of antianxiety medications as shown in this study. This study showed that people with panic disorder and social anxiety may be more sensitive to the anxiety-causing effects of caffeine. Somewhat paradoxically, caffeine withdrawal can also mimic anxiety

What about decaf?

It’s a disputed area, but many health practitioners don’t suggest it for two reasons. For one, many manufacturers use a chemical process to remove caffeine from the coffee beans. The result is less caffeine, but more chemicals. Secondly, it is the caffeine in the coffee that has the health benefits we discussed above. Without it, you are left with little benefit.

The change we resist the most is often the change we need the most

Many people who have made extensive dietary changes will admit that coffee was the last and hardest thing to eliminate from their diets. Coffee is our ritual; it’s our best friend.

But is it really? It is often said that the change we resist the most is the change our body needs the most. Let your intuition be your guide.

Bottom line

You will only know how you really feel without coffee when you get off it for 3 to 5 days (and please don’t say it does not impact you until you try this experiment). The first 2 days will be tough, but that tells you something important about this addictive substance, does it not?

Many women who have given up coffee and caffeine report better sleep within days, fewer hot flashes, less depression and anxiety, and many more other benefits over time.

What are some substitute options?

If you feel like you still need a slight kick, go for less-caffeinated options, such as green tea.

Once you are ready to completely rid yourself of caffeine, herbal teas are a wonderful replacement.

One of my personal favorites is a Roasted Chicory Latte – it tastes like coffee, but it contains no caffeine. Making it into a smooth and creamy (yet dairy-free) latte makes the transition so much easier.

RECIPE: ROASTED CHICORY ROOT LATTE

Time to prepare: 15 minutes; Time to steep: 10minutes.

Serves: 1

Equipment: blender

Ingredients

1 tbsp roasted chicory root

2 cups water

1 tbsp ghee, coconut butter or butter (if tolerated)

1 pitted date

fresh nutmeg (nut or powder)

How to make:

Bring water to a boil, add chicory root and steep for 10 minutes.

Strain and transfer to a blender.

Add the ghee (or any fat you decide to use) and the date. Blend for 1 minute at high speed.